


Garrus Vakarian Is Really A Sentimental Sap... But He Does It With Style

by Lunarflare14



Series: Empty Galaxies [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Loss, Mass Effect 2, Moving On, Other, Pre-Relationship, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarflare14/pseuds/Lunarflare14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus doesn't see himself having much of a future without Shepard. Luckily he doesn't have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garrus Vakarian Is Really A Sentimental Sap... But He Does It With Style

When the Council covered up the truth about Sovereign, Garrus lost it. That’s how he ended up leading Archangel, and ultimately how he became the last of Archangel. Without Shepard, it all fell to shit. He was what Joker called a “rebel without a cause”. He made Omega that cause. 

One night before a mission, he listened to a song about stopping and listening to what was happening. He liked to clean his gun to the tunes Shepard left him. They soothed his mind, just like in the old days. “ _There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong. Young people speaking their minds getting so much resistance from behind. I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down_.”

“What is that you’re listening too?” Sidonis sat down next to him.

Garrus turned the music off quickly. “Just some old music a friend gave me once. It helps me think… or not think, I suppose.”

“I’ve never heard anything like it. Where’s it from?”

“Earth. Before first contact.”

Sidonis was quiet for a while. He didn’t know the whole story. Just that Garrus had lost someone- someone he didn’t talk about. He knew how Garrus watched the vid she left him late at night. How he listened to every track, over and over. “You ever think about what we’ll do after this?”

“Nope. Way I see it, there will always be another scumbag to kill.”

“Pretend there wasn’t. What would you do?”

Garrus thought about it. For the first time in a while he entertained the notion of retirement. Where would he go? Home? No, after his mother died things between his father and him were at an all-time high, he barely even thought about his sister.

Back on the Normandy, he and Shepard talked about their plans all the time. He was surprised how many of them they planned to do together.

That empty feeling gnawed at him. He wondered if she would be proud of his work or if she’d give him that look, the one she gave when he was being a hothead. He pulled her up in his visor. “I think… I’d retire to somewhere tropical, sell my story for a good lump of cash…” That was where it ended. “Rest.”

“But you don’t think you’ll ever make it that far, do you?”

“I don’t. The future isn’t set in stone. We’re doing real good, that’s all I care about right now.” Garrus went back to cleaning his gun.

“That friend…”

“Dead.”

He looked over at Sidonis and was taken aback by the understanding in his friend’s eyes. “You never talk about you’re old life. The one from before.”

Garrus shrugged. “Not much to say.”

“She was important to you? The human?”

His throat closed up and no words came from his mouth when he opened it. He closed it and started again. “Yeah, she was my best friend. She was my strength… and my weakness. Sounds stupid and mushy when I say it like that.”

“How’d she die?”

“Spaced.”

Sidonis winced. “That’s a terrible way to go.”

Garrus nodded. “All I could think of was if I had been there to pull her back, maybe she’d still be alive. Her dying… broke me for a while. If she found out I was sitting around blaming myself, she’d probably come back and kick my ass.”

Sidonis laughed. “I wish I could’ve met her.”

“Shepard was an inspiration.” It was the first time he had said her name since he found out she was dead. It felt good to form the name, made her feel closer.

“Shepard? You don’t mean THE Shepard?”

“Commander Lana Shepard- the one and only.”

Sidonis clicked his mandibles, impressed. "I hear she was really something." Garrus nodded. “Do you think she’d want this life for you?”

Garrus’ hand’s stilled in their task. “I can’t know what she’d want. She’s dead. It’s not like I can call her up and ask…” If he sounded bitter, maybe he was. He had the video though and it said... “No. She’d want me to find peace.”

“It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could have done-“

“So I keep hearing. Somehow that doesn’t make it better.”

Sidonis took his pitying look and left.

 

When Sidonis betrayed the squad, he didn’t shut down like he did with Shepard. Instead he went straight into survival mode. He barricaded the place, set the mercs up so they had to funnel in. They would run out of men at some point. This was why he needed Shepard. He saw life through a scope, so focused on the details he always lost sight of the big picture.

It cost him everything. For the second time in his life, he had failed the ones he cared about.

When it started to become too much, he began recording his story of being Archangel. He talked about leaving C-Sec and forming his squad- the Salarian explosives expert, the Batarian tech guy, Sidonis, the whole lot of them. Garrus remember how they’d play poker on Tuesdays, and how the Batarian liked to garden. He didn’t talk about her. Instead he finished the recording and brought up her vid.

“-- _I’ll always be looking out for you, Vakarian. Very few people get guardian angels with shotguns. Play this vid whenever you’re low, or feeling friendless, or like you can’t keep going. Play it and know that I want you to keep going. The universe needs people like you._ ”

“See you on the other side, Lana.” He closed the vid and made a call, navigating through communication channels and connecting to Palaven. He had only one last thing to do.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“Dad?”

“ ** _Garrus_** _? Is that you? What’s that noise?”_ His father sounded kind of irritated, probably in the middle of paperwork or something. Screw that they hadn’t talked since he left the Citadel, his father would have something more important to do.

“Just a little target practice.”

“ _Then call me back later.”_

Garrus shrugged even though his father couldn’t see him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. Too many targets.”

His father went silent as the implications sank in. “… I see.”

“I just wanted to hear your voice.” It sounded like something a child would say. “Wanted to know how retirement was treating you. You good?” He shot at a couple of the mercs. He really just wanted something to focus on other than how tired he was.

“ _I’m fine. Forget about that_.” He could tell his dad was trying to stay calm.

“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. I wanted to say…” There were a lot of things he wanted to stay. That he loved him, that he wished he had been more like him, that he had listened more, that he called home more. He settled on making amends. “You were right about a lot of things- a lot more than I gave you credit for and I’m sorry we butted heads so much.” Without rules, Shepard’s rules, he had pushed too hard. This was his fault.

“ _I said forget about it_.” There was the authoritative note in his dad’s voice. The one that meant shut up and listen to him. “ _These targets you’re practicing on—they’re moving fast_?” Like his father could drop everything and head down here; he would probably try if he could make it on time.

“So far, not fast enough but they’re learning.”

“ _How are your thermal clips_?”

“You know how it is. Could always use a couple more.” No use lying to the man.

“ _Work with what you’ve got then. You don’t stop pulling that trigger til it click, son._ ” That was what Garrus had always loved about his dad. Another wave of freelancers was coming over the barricade and he studied them through the scope. His father said something about bullets and falling apart but Garrus wasn’t paying attention. He’d caught a familiar insignia in his sights and froze.

That wasn’t possible, but no other N7 dared to wear purple armor.

It wasn’t possible, but he checked the face and blue eyes stared back at him like she could see his face and winked. The shotgun in her hands put a huge hole in the back of a freelancer’s head. “… _We have a lot to sort out.”_

“Yeah, we do. Thanks, Dad. For everything” He didn’t say that often enough. “I have to go now. Don’t worry about me. I’ll make it home when I can. The odds just got a lot better.”

He let her fight her way to him, even firing a few concusive rounds at her to get her moving- or maybe to check that she was real. Whichever.

She finally made her way up through the doors with two other humans in tow, and asked, “Archangel?”

He shot one more and pulled back, taking off his helmet and sitting on some crates. “Shepard?” Suddenly the weight of her presence hit him. The confusion, the possible implications? Where had she been? “I thought you were dead?” It was the most intelligent thing he could think to say.

“Garrus!” She threw her arms out wide, like she wanted to hug him. He kind of wanted that too. Sentiment would be the death of him. “What are you doing here?” He assumed she meant on Omega as Archangel because it was pretty obvious that he was a few thermals away from being overrun.

“Just keeping my skills sharp. A little target practice.”

“You okay?”

He must have sounded really tired to her.

“I’ve been better. But it sure is good to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work. Especially on my own.”

“Since when do you go by Archangel?” She sounded almost disturbed by the name. He had thought it a bit dramatic at the beginning but it stuck.

“Just a name the locals gave me for all my good deeds but please it’s- um- just Garrus to you.”

They went over the obvious stuff about how he ended up on Omega. He wanted to ask about how she was still alive but he knew there would be time for that later- for her it would be just another walk in the park. He was too grateful to look to closely at the how of the situation.

Taking out the three major merc gangs? Classic Shepard. Just like old times. Impossible odds? No sweat.

The last thing that was clear in his memory was taking a rocket to the face. The rest was a bit hazy but he remembered the Commander barking orders. “Radio Joker! Make sure he’s ready for us!”

“He’s not going to make it.”

“Shut up! I’m not losing him.” A hand brushed the side of his face that wasn’t flaring with pain. “Hang in there, Garrus.”

Then everything went black.


End file.
